DreamsI've been keeping a dream journal on a special Twitter account since I was 23 years old. You can read these raw forms, if you'd like: @IHadaDreamWhere. I'm going to be adapting 99 of them as microstories.

Saturdays (mezzofiction)

Missy’s MissionWith the help of a friend, a young woman searches a rogue planet for the rumored means of getting rid of her special time powers, since having them puts her in the crosshairs of a psychotic time traveling killer.

My name is Nick Fisherman III. It's not my real name, but that's not because I'm trying to hide from my former agency, or something. I named myself after someone I've known for most of my life, and he chose it in honor of his late best friend. I took up writing when I found myself failing 8th grade science, and realized I might never reach my dream of becoming a biochemist, a meteorologist, and a quantum physicist. I started developing my canon after a scouting trip to an island inspired what I thought would be my first novel. I founded this website upon the advice of many people, who told me I needed to get my work out there, and not wait for an agent to accept my manuscript. You can expect one new story every day. Weekdays are for microstories, which are one or two paragraphs long. They're usually only thematically linked, so you won't have to read one to understand another, but they do sometimes tell a combined story. Sundays are for my continuous longer story, The Advancement of Leona Matic, which I started in the beginning, and won't end until 2066. Saturdays are for long series, most of which take place in the same universe as Leona, and add to the larger mythology.

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Microstory 812: Water Shoes

I stumble out of the building, totally disoriented, with no memory of the last day or two. I don’t know what I’m running from, but I know it isn’t good. I woke up on a table, tiny little metal things holding my eyelids open. Someone must have given me something, because it’s brighter outside than I’ve ever seen it. I can make out a few shapes here and there, enough to keep from running out in traffic, but I can’t see any detail. I don’t see the shape of what’s coming for me, though, because I’m already feeling off-balance, and turning my head would just make it that much worse. I keep blinking as a run, thinking my eyes will adjust to the daytime, but they never do. It doesn’t even just look like the sunlight beating down on me, but like every surface I encounter is reflective. I land in a couple shallow puddles, then across some grass, and as I do, I hear fewer and fewer city sounds. I sense that whatever is chasing me is getting even closer, and since I don’t have any clue where I’m going, I may never be able to outlast it. I start to feel water leaking into my shoes, but one thing I can see is that I’m not walking through water. It’s just somehow appearing out of nowhere, and while it does so, I start to feel the tightness of my shoes less and less. Not until the last aglet is gone do I realize that my shoes themselves have turned into water. Somehow. What’s even more amazing is that the shoes stay on my feet, and continue to protect me from the rocks I’m now running on.

I don’t even feel the road beneath me. Still, the thing behind maintains its pursuit. Getting an idea from what’s happened to my shoes, I take a sharp left turn, and—despite my full eyesight not returning—deftly maneuver down the bank, and into a lake. Rather, I’m on top of the lake. I can run on top of the water, as it were nothing more than soft Colorado snow. I keep running, acutely aware that my tormentor has found itself unable to follow me here, but I can hear it scream at me. It’s definitely not human. Then again, I don’t feel human anymore either. The more I run across the lake, the more water splashes on my body, and as it does, that body part begins to feel less like itself; like I no longer have any feeling there. I begin to sink, but still, I never stop. It’s a pointless endeavor, as my body starts melting into a liquid state. Just before my head transforms, my last thought is of a once-lost memory. I remember now that I first experienced these symptoms a few days ago, and had found someone to help me correct the problem. I shouldn’t have run from them.